Microsoft is Working On a New Iteration of Windows To Take On ChromeOS, Report Says (petri.com)

Petri's Brad Sams writes: For more than a year, we have been hearing about Windows Core OS and how it is a modern version of Windows. As Microsoft continues to build out the platform, it's time to take a look at what the secret project actually includes and how the company is positioning the platform. In Microsoft's feverish attempts to shove out insider builds at an impressive rate, the company doesn't always do a great job at scrubbing the finer details from the builds. Because of this, and some help from a couple insiders, I have been able to piece together what Lite is and where it's headed.

Microsoft is working on a new version of Windows that may not actually be Windows. It's currently called Lite, based on documentation found in the latest build, and I can confirm that this version of the OS is targeting Chromebooks. In fact, there are markings all over the latest release of the insider builds and SDK that help us understand where this OS is headed. If you have heard this before, it should sound a lot like Windows 10 S and RT; Windows 10 Lite only runs PWAs and UWP apps and strips out everything else. This is finally a truly a lightweight version of Windows that isn't only in the name. This is not a version of the OS that will run in the enterprise or even small business environments and I don't think you will be able to 'buy' the OS either; OEM only may be the way forward.

Comments

2019 the year of the Microsoft Browser desktop

[BringsApples]

First they replace Edge with Chromium. Then they replace the OS with a browser-based system.

I wonder if Microsoft is just going to survive off of it's cloud-based azure? They're doing LOTS of new work in that project.

Re:Ah yes, the perpetual follower

[squiggleslash]

The joke is they're going to where ChromeOS is thought to be, not where it is now. It was originally a "secure" OS that you couldn't install software on that wasn't NaCl or HTML5. Now you can install Android apps and can - albeit this is not production ready in my opinion - install arbitrary GNU/Linux applications (yeah, sudo apt-get install libreoffice works, add your own repos, compile your own applications, etc.)

(What it is good at right now, perhaps better at than Windows, is web development. Install VSCode and Atom in your Penguin container, and then install whatever web stacks you want in custom containers running whatever LXD compatible operating system you want. So all of a sudden there's interest in high end Chromebooks.)

So Windows is going to be locked down, while Chromebooks look, within the next year or two, to become general purpose computers you can do whatever you want with.

And I'd make a guess that Locked Down Windows will still be less secure than ChromeOS. Because the amount of work needed to add the level of sandboxing and integrity checking needed to make Windows as secure is going to be very, very, high.

(The other question though is "What's the point?" Who is going to want to use locked down Windows? Nobody uses it because they like Edge, or because they're easy to administer, we all use it because of the extensive software base and the implications that has in terms of everyone being able to swap files with one another. Without the ability to install arbitrary software, Windows becomes a difficult to maintain unreliable unstable insecure operating system with quirks everyone hates.)